Web of Fire Bind-up (31 page)

He was surrounded on all sides by thickly wooded, mountain slopes which rose steeply from the rocky shore. The branches of trees were bent low under the weight of snow which had fallen during the night. The boy began to shiver violently in the cold wind and his teeth chattered so loudly that he failed to notice the approaching figure until he was standing right in front of him.

The man was dressed in a thick woollen robe and his long, dark hair was woven with coloured threads. He carried two more robes and as he held one out in front of him, the boy saw that his eyes were full of kindness.

‘You have been cold for long enough,' he said. ‘It is time that you were warm again.'

He slipped the robe over the boy's head and the boy immediately felt warmer as the soft fur lining enveloped his skin. But as he looked around at the lake and the snow-covered mountains, he felt lost, like a boat adrift in an endless sea.

‘Please,' he said softly. ‘I am so afraid.'

The man put a hand on his shoulder. ‘It will be difficult at the beginning. But there are others here who will help you, Sam. You must find them quickly.'

When the boy heard this, something stirred in his memory and his eyes widened. He looked up hopefully at the man and asked, ‘Is that my name? Sam?'

The man nodded and smiled. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘That is your name.' He put his hand on Sam's shoulder.

‘And there will be many in Aurobon who will be glad to hear it once more.'

A light snow was falling, drifting from the sky above Vahlzi and settling on the rubble that was strewn across its empty streets. The occasional crack-crack-crack of gunfire suggested groups of Vahlzian Resistance fighters were still engaging the enemy on the east side of the city, but otherwise the streets were eerily quiet.

A Vermian soldier picked his way cautiously through the debris, nervously scanning the blackened ruins for signs of life. As his boots disturbed a sheet of corrugated iron there was a flurry of brown and he swung his rifle around to see a large rat darting away across the stones. Swearing under his breath, he kicked at the rusty metal before resuming his slow progress over the bricks, nervously training his rifle upon each doorway as he passed. When he finally disappeared around the corner, there was silence for a moment, followed by a faint scraping sound and then the strip of rusty corrugated iron began – very slowly – to move. Below it, the face of a young man was just visible, his anxious expression framed by a straggle of dark, shoulder-length hair.

‘We have
got
to get out of here, Mump,' said Zip, lifting the sheet of metal just enough to peer out from his hiding place at the street above. From behind him there came a loud clang, followed by a yelp of pain.

‘For goodness sake keep it down!' he hissed as the air was filled with loud, angry curses. ‘If anyone spots us, we're dead meat!'

‘Suits me,' said Mump, rubbing his head. ‘Might as
well be dead anyway, the amount of time we've been buried under this thing.'

Ignoring him, Zip turned his attention back towards the street. He knew how Mump felt. They were part of a well-organised Vahlzian Resistance movement which operated from a secret base back in the mountains. They'd been hiding in this bombed-out cellar for over a week now, observing enemy movements and carrying out attacks on supply lines in order to cause as much disruption as possible.

But Vermian forces were getting wise to them. It hadn't taken them long to work out that the attacks were coming from groups operating in the heart of Vahlzi. So Vermian soldiers had started to carry out a systematic search of the city in an attempt to hunt down and kill the people responsible. If a place looked slightly suspicious, they either torched it or – if they were especially annoyed – came with high explosives and blew it apart. So now the streets were full of hollow-eyed refugees, women, children and old men picking their way through the ruins in the hope of retrieving something of value: clothes, shoes, warm blankets or – the greatest treasure of all – food.

The Vermian attack had been so unexpected that the people of Vahlzi were completely unprepared. One moment they were tending their gardens, visiting the theatre or having friends round for dinner, the next they were huddled in bombed-out buildings, scrabbling around for food and arguing over who had eaten the
last slice of rotting potato. Suddenly they had woken up to find their beautiful city torn apart and filled with ruthless men in black uniforms; men who bullied or murdered them on a whim and then went on to plunder their farms and food stocks, filling their bellies while the people of Vahlzi starved.

It was a terrible time and it seemed that things could only get worse.

Zip knew that the Vermian High Command was desperate to discover where the Vahlzian Resistance fighters were hiding out and would stop at nothing to find them.

And if they discovered the location of the Resistance base, then the war would be as good as lost.

‘Maybe we should head back to the mountains for a while,' suggested Zip, keeping a watchful eye on a group of soldiers at the far end of the street. ‘I reckon things are getting too dangerous here. Let's go and get cleaned up, maybe find something to eat. We can come back in a week or two when the heat's died down a bit.'

From the cellar below came the sound of Mump's boots splashing about in the puddles. Zip lowered the sheet of corrugated iron again and looked down to see Mump busily ferreting around in the dark.

‘What do you reckon, mate?'

Mump stopped what he was doing and looked up, squinting into the light.

‘Eh?'

‘What d'you say we get out of here?'

Mump furrowed his brow, the idea gradually filtering
into his mind like water seeping through stone. Finally he nodded his head vigorously up and down.

‘Good idea, yep. Let's get out of here. Yeah. Only…' Mump hesitated. His face wore the expression of someone who has had a great idea, but is worried that their opinion of its greatness will not be shared by others. ‘Only what?' said Zip. ‘Come on, buddy. Those soldiers are getting a bit close for comfort.'

‘Only I think we might as well use this stuff before we go,' said Mump. ‘It would be a shame to waste it.' He raised his eyebrows and looked hopefully in Zip's direction.

Zip stared down into the gloom of the cellar and saw that Mump was standing proudly with his arms folded and a small wooden crate between his feet. Stacked up in the crate were about half a dozen square lumps of what looked like grey plasticine. Each lump was about the size of a pack of sausages.

‘Explosives?' Zip raised one eyebrow quizzically. ‘Where did you find that little lot?'

Mump grinned. ‘Remember when C troop stopped off here on their way to blow up the ammunition dump?'

Zip nodded.

‘Well they left this behind.'

‘Left it behind?' echoed Zip. He looked at Mump doubtfully. ‘And I suppose they asked you to look after it for them, did they?'

‘Well, not exactly,' said Mump, staring awkwardly at the floor. ‘But I figured they had more than enough
explosives to do the job. Anyway, it was a bit unfair to expect them to carry so much.'

The corner of Zip's mouth turned up in a little half smile.

‘You nicked it, didn't you?'

‘No!' said Mump indignantly. ‘I re-
assigned
it, that's all. It was a logistical decision.'

‘A logistical decision,' repeated Zip, jumping down onto the cellar floor. ‘Mump, you wouldn't know a logistical decision if it came up and whacked you in the woolahs.'

He picked up a lump of explosive and weighed it thoughtfully in his hand for a moment. Then he tossed it to Mump who smiled happily and held out his shirt to catch it.

‘OK,' he said. ‘But first we need a plan.'

Sam stared into the fire and watched the embers glow red against the dark stones. He tried desperately to remember something – anything – but his mind was full of wispy, insubstantial memories that floated around him like silken scarves in a breeze. Whenever he tried to catch one he would feel it slip from his grasp, spinning and whirling with all the others in a dance that he could not understand. But suddenly, as he looked at the stars and the lake and the mountains he remembered: this was Aurobon and he had been here before.

He had fought in a war against Vermia, training as a wasp pilot to stop Odoursin's mosquitoes infecting the
people of Earth with a deadly virus.

As he looked at the man who sat opposite him on the shore, he recalled how the two of them had once walked together upon these stones.

‘I remember you,' he said. ‘Your name is Salus.'

‘Good,' said the man and smiled. ‘Now we both have a name.'

Sam watched in silence for a while as snowflakes fell into the fire and melted in the heat.

‘Why am I here?' he asked after a while. He shook his head and stared across the dark waters of the lake. ‘I went home to my family on Earth again, I know I did. Why have I come back?'

When Salus made no reply, Sam said, ‘I feel as though I have lost something. Have I left something behind?'

‘Now is not the moment to be looking back,' answered Salus. ‘These are dangerous times in Aurobon. Your friends are in grave danger and you must go to them without delay.'

Sam was puzzled. ‘My friends?' he asked. ‘But how will I find them?'

‘You will find them,' said Salus, ‘because they are already calling to you.'

‘All done,' said Zip cheerfully, rolling the last lump of grey explosive into a ball and pushing a piece of wood into it. ‘Now for the sticky stuff.'

He held the wood firmly in one hand and dipped the explosive into a large pot of thick, gooey axle grease,
wiping it around the inside until it was completely covered.

‘Well, don't they look scrummy?' said Mump admiringly. ‘Those bugs are in for a treat.'

He watched as Zip placed the finished sticky-bomb with the others on the metal lid of an old biscuit tin and wiped his hands on the front of his jacket.

‘Right,' said Zip. ‘The one nearest you has got the twenty-second fuse. The rest of them are about eight seconds. Now remember, we don't want to be hanging around out there. Soon as we've got one of those things after us, we leg it straight back here, do the business and then get out. OK?'

‘OK,' said Mump.

He picked up the nearest sticky-bomb and smiled.

‘Toffee apple, anyone?'

They edged slowly and carefully past the crumbling walls of bombed-out buildings until at last they reached the end of the street. Zip peered cautiously around the corner and immediately drew his head back again.

‘We're in business,' he whispered. ‘Six man patrol plus an eight-leg.'

Mump giggled nervously and put a hand over his mouth.

Zip gave him an angry stare.

‘This isn't a game you know, Mump. Those things'll tear you apart.'

He took another look around the edge of the building
and saw that the soldiers were heading in their direction. But the soldiers weren't the real problem. The real problem was the massive, brown-haired tarantula spider crawling across the rubble in front of them. Zip could see its black, beady eyes staring into every building as it passed, checking for signs of movement. As it squeezed its way through the narrow street and rubbed up against the ruined houses, brickwork smashed and crumbled to the ground, filling the air with clouds of dust.

Zip shuddered and stepped back hurriedly.

‘We really don't need to do this, Mump,' he said. ‘There's a whole bunch of trouble waiting around that corner. Maybe we should just leave it.'

But turning around he saw that the fuse on Mump's sticky-bomb was fizzing and that leaving it was no longer an option.

‘Too late,' said Mump. ‘I've gone and lit me lollipop.'

Then he ran off around the corner.

‘Wait!' shouted Zip. ‘Come back!'

Peering around the side of the building he saw Mump standing in the middle of the street, waving his sticky bomb above his head and dancing around like an enthusiastic cheerleader.

‘Cooo-eee!' Mump shouted at the top of his voice. ‘Spiiiiideeeee!'

The soldiers raised their guns.

Zip watched Mump throw the sticky bomb high into the sky.

Then the air was alive with the crack and whine of
bullets and Mump sprinted past him like a whippet with its tail on fire.

‘Quick!' he yelled in a hoarse, wheezy voice. ‘Leg it!'

Zip turned and ran just as the sticky bomb ignited with a loud thump and a hot wind of smoke and dust came howling down the street behind him. Up ahead he saw Mump pull aside the strip of corrugated iron and disappear down into the cellar. His heart pounding in his chest, Zip reached the hole and jumped down without breaking stride. He landed heavily next to Mump and noticed that he was already holding two sticky bombs in each hand.